A painter doesn't need any talent. In fact, it's better not to have it.

The artist is not responsible to any one. His social role is asocial... his only responsibility consists in an attitude to the work he does.

What counts most is finding new ways to get the world down in paint on my own terms.

I begin with an idea, but as I work, the picture takes over. Then there is the struggle between the idea I preconceived... and the picture that fights for its own life.

Women don't paint very well. It's a fact. There are, of course, exceptions. Agnes Martin or, from the past, Paula Modersohn-Becker.

An object painted upside down is suitable for painting because it is unsuitable as an object.

I had always loved expressionist painting, like every European. In fact I admired it all the more because these were precisely the paintings despised by my father's generation.

Art is visceral and vulgar - it's an eruption.

I hang my work upside down to emphasize surface.

The reality is the picture, it is most certainly not in the picture.

What I could never escape was Germany, and being German.

I love all of myself in all ways for all time. I am made of pure love, and it permeates all of my selves.

I'm quite aware of my differences. I wouldn't classify them as weird

I would probably be a teacher if I weren't a comedian.

A political prisoner is someone who is out fighting for his or her people's rights and freedom and is imprisoned for that alone.

My money's on the lady," he drawled. "You don't tame a vixen, you just travel in her wake.

The words "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" which I saw on an Italian movie poster, are perhaps the briefest statement imaginable of the basic appeal of movies

I think it is really important to be in some way provocative -- either intellectually or viscerally -- in the films one makes.

I'm going to be pissed if I walk all the way to the camp and end up getting shot.

Move over Lucifer, I'm more ruthless, leave you toothless.

Never be in debt. Never reside near enemies. Never trap your body through disease. Never forget the Lord with his consort who resides in the heart.